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Is America Heading for Civil War?

I hope the answer is no. I hope David French of National Review is correct in his assessment. OTOH, I do not share his optimism.

If the two sides each had a “live and let live” mentality and didn’t mind the “Red” and “Blue” regions breaking up, this would have a peaceable resolution.

Having said that, I don’t see the Totalitarian Left–which dominates the Deep State–tolerating any breakup. Governor Moonbeam is going to want “Red” America to bail out California. And as businesses bail from Illinois, Washington, Oregon, and New England, those regions are not going to be thrilled at the prospect of funding their socialist scams without the support of the “Red” states.

Nor do I see a Beltway apparatus being amenable to an amicable split. They’ll fight it, and probably with real artillery.

I don’t like the prospect of war. I have blogged against that on these pages: Christians, as far as it depends on them, cannot afford to pick that fight with government.

People who want that war have not thought this through.

(1) The day you so much as aim a firearm–or any other piece of weaponry–at a government agent, your life as you know it is over. That means your family–from your children to your relatives–will not be safe. If you’re lucky, you will be in hiding for the rest of your life.

(2) Go ahead and gush about 1776, and how we kicked King George’s ass. That is not the general outcome of these wars. That our Revolution produced the most free and prosperous nation in world history is no guarantee that any such revolt will provide a similar outcome. More often than not, a civil war generally ends poorly.

What David French has provided is a best-case scenario, and I hope he is correct.

The cynic in me says we are heading for Civil War II. And it will make the first one look benign.

I say that because there are simply too many trigger-happy morons on each side.

I too also hope we aren’t heading for another civil war, at least from a military standpoint. I was born and raised in Virginia, the state more affected by the Civil War than any other, and still live on the southern side of the Potomac River. When I was growing up I recall hearing that Virginia didn’t fully recover from the physical or economic toll inflicted by the war until the 1950’s. Some of my most sobering moments as a child and as an adult were visits to Civil War battlefields and cemeteries.

The changes to this country in recent years are staggering. The same state where Pete Wilson served two terms as governor during the 1990’s has become an American version of the western European welfare states. Good luck to them when the Golden State’s richest residents tire of paying a combined 52.9% marginal income tax rate, not including Medicare tax, and flee elsewhere. Closer to home, the county where I live was considered a swing county when I first moved here in the mid-1980’s. Hillary Clinton carried this county by more than a 2-1 margin in last November’s presidential election, and a Republican probably couldn’t get elected dog catcher today if that were an elective office. The county where I grew up, which Republican presidential candidates carried in every election from 1952 through 2004, also voted overwhelmingly for Mrs. Clinton.

Where are we headed? Who knows? We don’t seem to be getting more unified as a country, that’s for sure. Can we avoid a shooting war or a dictatorship? That remains to be seen.

Yep. I noticed the returns in Virginia for the last two elections. Romney lost VA in 2012, and that was an ominous sign for conservatives. The demographics of the Presidential elections since 2000 have been very tight. Virginia is critical. If that goes blue–and that seems to be the case, given the last two election cycles–then that puts conservatives behind the 8-ball.

Trump won due to his ability to win states that had not gone Republican in a long time: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Had he lost those states–states that neither Bush I in 1992, Dole, Bush II, McCain, nor Romney carried–Hillary would be President right now. The loss of Virginia would have tilted the election in her favor.

What made the difference for Trump was his ability to get new voters: voters who otherwise would have stayed home altogether.

Trump was able ride that wave to a victory that was a lot closer than a lot of folks on the right want to admit. That is not a good sign going forward.

What is striking is the differences between the countryside and the cities. And that were it not for the electoral college that the founding fathers instituted. The cities would have overpowered the countryside and America would be in a lot more trouble.

Good observation, Cubbie. In fact, Donald Trump would have won Virginia by roughly 93,000 votes if the state were still configured as it was prior to the Civil War.

After Wednesday morning’s shooting in Alexandria, VA that left House Majority Whip Steve Scalise critically wounded, I’m rethinking my original answer. Perhaps the war has already started, not at Fort Sumter but at a park in a normally quiet neighborhood less than ten miles from my house. Kyrie eleison.